Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Pharisee Dolan wasn’t at the synagogue like he usually is, instead he was out among the sheep...literally out among the sheep! In what is fast becoming a tradition (it’s taken place now for two years running), Dolan was ‘blessing’ two sheep, several camels, one ass (no not himself), and four immodestly dressed Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The Pharisee was his usual quipping self, telling the media and those present that, “To be part of this is a real joy and honor. You’re getting me into the Christmas spirit already.” And further explained why he was there, “Pope Francis said…we’re supposed to be shepherds.” Ha, ha, ha! How funny! How scandalous and sacrilegious! We at Call Me Jorge... expect nothing less from Dolan. Hence, why we call him ‘Pharisee’. We wonder if Bp. Fellay will invite Timothy and his immodestly dressed Rockettes to the next baptism of church bells?

Saturday, November 26, 2016

On receiving the sad news of the death of your dear brother, His Excellency Mister Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, former president of the State Council and of the Government of the Republic of Cuba, I express my sentiments of sorrow to Your Excellency and other family members of the deceased dignitary, as well as to the people of this beloved nation. At the same time, I offer prayers to the Lord for his rest and I entrust the whole Cuban people to the maternal intercession of our Lady of the Charity of El Cobre, patroness of that country.

Friday, November 25, 2016

“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn't. I'm an atheist.”

Best wishes to all of you participating in the VI festival of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

The theme for this year is: “Amongst People”. This expresses a great truth: we are made to be with others (this is what I was talking about the day after my election as Bishop of Rome). Our humanity is much enriched when we are with others in whatever situation they may find themselves. It is isolation that harms, not sharing. Isolation spreads fear and mistrust and stops us from rejoicing in brotherhood. We really must tell each other that we are taking more risks when we isolate ourselves rather than when we open ourselves to the other: there is a much higher probability of hurting ourselves in closure and rejection than in encounter. The same is true when we get close to someone: I am thinking of a sick or elderly person, an immigrant, an unemployed or a poor person. When we take care of the other we end up complicating our own life far less than when we're just focused upon ourselves.

Being amongst people does not mean merely being open towards others but also letting others get close to us. We need to be looked at, called, touched, challenged; we need others in order to be able to partake of all that others give us. A relationship implies an exchange between people: experience tells us that we usually receive more than we give. Amongst our people there is real human wealth. There are countless stories of solidarity, help and support within our families and communities.

The dignity with which some people face economic hardship, pain, hard work and other challenges is impressive. Meeting these people allows you to touch their greatness and receive a kind of light that makes it clear that it is possible to nurture hope for the future; you can believe that good is stronger than evil because of them. Being amongst people means we have access to the lessons of life. For example: I was recently told that a 19-year-old girl had died. The pain was immense and many attended her funeral. What struck everyone was not just the absence of despair, but the perception of a kind of serenity. After the funeral people were commenting with wonder on how they felt comforted after the ceremony. The young woman’s mother said: “I received the grace of serenity.” Daily life is interwoven with things that leave their mark on us: they never lose their effect even although they may never feature in the headlines. Things happen just like that: without speeches or explanations one understands the things that are really worthy in life.

Being amongst people also means experiencing that we are all part of a people. Everyday life is possible because it is not made of the sum of many individual elements, but of the joint effort of many people that come together to give life to the common good. Being together helps us see the whole picture. When we see the whole picture our vision is enriched and it is clear that the roles that each of us plays within social dynamics can never be isolated or seen as absolute. When a people is separated from whoever is in power, when choices are made on the basis of power and not as a fruit of popular expression, when those in power consider themselves more important than the people and decisions are made by few, or are anonymous, or are always dictated by real or presumed emergencies, then social harmony is threatened with serious consequences: poverty increases, peace is jeopardized, money is in command and the people suffers. Being amongst people is good therefore not only for the life of the individual but for everyone.

Being amongst people highlights the plurality of colors, cultures, races and religions. People allow you to experience first-hand the richness and beauty of diversity. Only with great a great act of violence would it be possible to reduce the variety, the plurality of thoughts and actions to a single way of doing and thinking. When you're with people you touch humanity: there is never just the head, there is always also the heart, there is more substance and less ideology. To solve people's problems you must start from the bottom, you must get your hands dirty, have courage, listen to the poorest and most marginalized.

It is instinctive to ask: how does one do that? We can find the answer looking to Mary. She serves, she is humble, she is merciful, she walks with us, she is concrete, and she never takes center stage but is a constant presence. If we look to Her we will find the best way to be amongst people. Looking to Her we can tread all human paths without fear or prejudice; with Her we can become capable of not excluding anyone.

This is my wish for all of you.

Before saying goodbye I would like to thank the Bishop of Verona for his welcome, all the volunteers for their availability and generosity, Fr Adriano Vincenzi for his work promoting the knowledge and the updating of the Church's social doctrine.

Monday, November 21, 2016

“For the Jubilee Year I had also granted that those faithful who, for various reasons, attend churches officiated by the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, can validly and licitly receive the sacramental absolution of their sins.[15]For the pastoral benefit of these faithful, and trusting in the good will of their priests to strive with God’s help for the recovery of full communion in the Catholic Church, I have personally decided to extend this faculty beyond the Jubilee Year, until further provisions are made, lest anyone ever be deprived of the sacramental sign of reconciliation through the Church’s pardon.”

1. It is asked whether, following the affirmations of "Amoris Laetitia" (nn. 300-305), it has now become possible to grant absolution in the Sacrament of Penance and thus to admit to Holy Communion a person who, while bound by a valid marital bond, lives together with a different person "more uxorio" (in a marital way) without fulfilling the conditions provided for by "Familiaris Consortio" n. 84 and subsequently reaffirmed by "Reconciliatio et Paenitentia" n. 34 and "Sacramentum Caritatis" n. 29. Can the expression “in certain cases” found in note 351 (n. 305) of the exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" be applied to divorced persons who are in a new union and who continue to live "more uxorio"?

2. After the publication of the Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" (cf. n. 304), does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s Encyclical "Veritatis Splendor" n. 79, based on Sacred Scripture and on the Tradition of the Church, on the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts and that are binding without exceptions?

3. After "Amoris Laetitia" (n. 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration, June 24, 2000)?

4. After the affirmations of "Amoris Laetitia" (n. 302) on “circumstances which mitigate moral responsibility,” does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s Encyclical "Veritatis Splendor" n. 81, based on Sacred Scripture and on the Tradition of the Church, according to which “circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act ‘subjectively’ good or defensible as a choice”?

5. After "Amoris Laetitia" (n. 303) does one still need to regard as valid the teaching of St. John Paul II’s encyclical "Veritatis Splendor" n. 56, based on Sacred Scripture and on the Tradition of the Church, that excludes a creative interpretation of the role of conscience and that emphasizes that conscience can never be authorized to legitimate exceptions to absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object?

This set things into motion. According to Edward Pentin, a Vatican reporter for the National Catholic Register, “There has been no formal reaction from the Vatican but I do understand from sources within Santa Marta that the Pope is not happy at all and he is in fact quoted as boiling with rage. So, he’s really not happy at all with this.” In fact, Francis is so upset he decided to cancel the consistory with the college of cardinals he had scheduled to happen on 19 November 2016.

Edward Pentin describing Francis as “boiling with rage”

Francis’ Jesuit buddy, Antonio Spadaro, quickly denied the story, “When I read that #PapaFrancesco was "furious" because of ecclesiastical quarrels I burst out laughing There are many other things that make him "infuriated"”.

Once something has been denied it becomes ‘official’. In an interview with Francis conducted by Stefania Falasca and published in the Italian daily Avennire on 17 November 2016, Francis brings up Amoris Laetitia.

“The Church exists only as an instrument for the communication of God’s merciful plan to the people. At the Council [Vatican II], the Church felt it had the responsibility to be a living sign of the Father’s love in the world. With Lumen Gentium, it returns to the origins of its nature, the Gospel. This shifts the axis of Christianity away from a certain kind of legalism which can be ideological, towards the Person of God, who became mercy through the incarnation of the Son. Some — he (Francis) thinks of certain replies to Amoris Laetitia — still do not understand, or it’s black or white, even though it is in the course of life that we are called to discern. The Council told us this, but historians say that a century needs to pass before a Council is properly absorbed into the body of the Church… we are half way.”

Does it sound as if something is gnawing at him?

The chutzpah Francis has to suggest that before Vatican II the Church was not living up to the Gospel, it was instead legalistic and without God’s love! It’s little wonder, Francis who promotes himself as ‘humble’ blew his stack when someone dared ask him to clarify a few points in Amoris Laetitia.

Recall last year in October, when Francis went on a rampage in the Vatican after 13 cardinals wrote him raising their objections to the Synod. Sources reported that Francis caught up in a sudden violent outburst of anger, thundered against them saying, “If this is the case, they can leave. The Church does not need them. I'll throw them all out!” In fact, Francis was so worked up, people in Vatican fearing for his life sent for a doctor who diagnosed Francis with tachyarrhythmia (a resting heart rate which exceeds 100 beats per minute).

Perhaps, as an anonymous commentator suggested, Francis wasn’t speaking about himself to the attendees of his Wednesday general audience when giving advice on how to put up with annoying people but was talking about his cardinals particularly; Caffarra, Burke, Brandmuller, and Meisner.

The ‘Jubilee Year of Mercy’ is officially over in two days and it appears Francis ended it just in time as he has exhausted his supply of Mercy. One would have thought that Francis ‘the humble’ would be understanding of these cardinals, especially Burke who despite having a doctorate in Canon Law and an award’s case full of honors pertaining to Canon Law had to have the Vatican explain to him that individuals who have undergone sex-change operations cannot be validly be admitted into a religious institute or society of consecrated
life. And also, that if a transsexual is now living in a religious
order the transsexual must be expelled from the religious house. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Francis would show Burke some patience? Here we were thinking that Francis was a bridge builder! Oh, well!

We at Call Me Jorge... believe that Msgr. Adriano Bernardini summed it up best about Francis (who was then only ‘humble’ Cardinal Bergoglio) when he was the nuncio to Argentina,

Thursday, November 17, 2016

I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to you. Just a year ago, I was with you during my Pastoral Visit to the United States. There I was impressed by the vitality and diversity of the Catholic community. Throughout its history, the Church in your country has welcomed and integrated new waves of immigrants. In the rich variety of their languages and cultural traditions, they have shaped the changing face of the American Church.

In this context, I would commend the coming Fifth National Hispanic Pastoral Encuentro. The celebration of this Fifth Encuentro will begin in your Dioceses in this coming January and conclude with a national celebration in September 2018.

In continuity with its predecessors, the Encuentro seeks to acknowledge and value the specific gifts that Hispanic Catholics have offered, and continue to offer, to the Church in your country. But it is more than that. It is part of a greater process of renewal and missionary outreach, one to which all of your local Churches are called.

Our great challenge is to create a culture of encounter, which encourages individuals and groups to share the richness of their traditions and experiences, to break down walls and to build bridges. The Church in America, as elsewhere, is called to “go out” from its comfort zone and to be a leaven of communion. Communion among ourselves, with our fellow Christians, and with all who seek a future of hope.

We need to become ever more fully a community of missionary disciples, filled with love of the Lord Jesus and enthusiasm for the spread of the Gospel. The Christian community is meant to be a sign and prophecy of God’s plan for the entire human family. We are called to be bearers of good news for a society gripped by disconcerting social, cultural and spiritual shifts, and increasing polarization.

It is my hope that the Church in your country, at every level, will accompany the Encuentro with its own reflection and pastoral discernment. In a particular way, I ask you to consider how your local Churches can best respond to the growing presence, gifts and potential of the Hispanic community. Mindful of the contribution that the Hispanic community makes to the life of the nation, I pray that the Encuentro will bear fruit for the renewal of American society and for the Church’s apostolate in the United States.

With gratitude to all engaged in the preparation of the Fifth Encuentro, I assure you of my prayers for this important initiative of your Conference. Commending you, and the clergy, religious and lay faithful of your local Churches, to the prayers of Mary Immaculate, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of grace and peace in the Lord.

The text of the new Statute governing the Pontifical Academy for Life was approved by Francis on 18 October 2016 and was promulgated on 4 November 2016 by publication in L’Osservatore Romano. The new Statute will come into force on 1 January 2017.

Below is the relevant Italian quote taken from the document on the Vatican’s website. Notice the Italian word ‘generi’ is used. This is the plural of ‘genere’, the Italian word for gender. If Francis had wanted to be specific he would have used the word ‘sessi’ (Italian for sexes), the plural of ‘sesso’. Instead, he uses the ambiguous ‘generi’. The politically correct degenerates hell-bent on destroying the Catholic family are celebrating this new document in Europe. (We have taken the liberty and underlined the phrase that the word ‘generi’ is used in below.)

§ 3 - The Academy has a primarily scientific role, for the promotion and defense of human life
(See Vitae Mysterium, 4). In particular, it studies various matters dealing with care for the dignity
of the human person in the several stages of existence, mutual respect between the genders and
generations, the defense of the dignity of every single human being, the promotion of a quality of
human life that integrates material and spiritual values, within the perspective of a genuine “human
ecology,” that assists in the rediscovery of the original equilibrium in Creation between the human
person and the whole universe (Chirograph, August 15, 2016).

Call Me Jorge...’s English translation of the Italian

What a bunch of modernists!

Are Francis and the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life gender-fluid?

Steffen Königer ridiculing the 60 types of gender in Europe

What does the Catholic Church have to say about using language such as this?

— Pope St. Pius X —

“Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action. Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all but fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.”

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Uh oh, another Francis interview with the revolutionary atheist, Eugenio Scalfari. We can already hear the conservatives in the Novus Ordo lamenting...it doesn’t count! Scalfari doesn’t take notes or record his interviews, he does them all from memory! Well, whoopee! Isn’t it possible that Scalfari is 100% accurate with his published interviews, after all the man might possess a phenomenal photographic memory. Even if he doesn’t, Francis keeps going back to Eugenio Scalfari for interview after interview after interview ad nauseam. And remember, Francis has also repeatedly stated that the only newspaper which he reads every day is La Repubblica where Scalfari often publishes his pieces with Francis. So the Novus Ordo conservatives can’t play the Francis is ignorant damage control card. Without further ado, we present Scalfari’s interview with Francis below. This interview was published on 11 November 2016 in La Repubblica and also in the L'Osservatore Romano of 12 November 2016 on page 5.

I AM WRITING this article the day after Donald Trump's unexpected election victory over Hillary Clinton. But my topic is not what has happened in America but a long-awaited invitation for a meeting with Pope Francis. I had a long phone call with him the previous week because His Holiness wanted to discuss the visit that he would have three days later in Sweden with the Lutheran World Federation and the reform that gave rise to the Lutheran churches half a millennium ago. I refer to this conversation just to explain that although I am honoured to receive frequent phone calls from Pope Francis, we have not met in person for over a year. So I was very pleased to receive his invitation.

We met on Monday 7th and were together for over an hour. Two days earlier, on Saturday 5th, the Pope had met with representatives of the Popular Movements. These are movements with hundreds of thousands of adherents in the main Christian countries. Pope Francis’s speech to these volunteers of the faith takes up six pages of [Vatican daily]L'Osservatore Romano. Of course, when we met two days later, I had already read the full text of that speech. I have often written that Francis is a revolutionary, but this was beyond revolution... And now let's see how and why.

***

We embraced each other after a long time. “You look well,” he said.

You also look well, despite your continuing hardships.«It is the Lord who decides.»

And “our sister bodily death”.“Yes, bodily.”

The conversation was immediately profound.

Your Holiness - I asked him - what do you think of Donald Trump?“I do not pass judgment on people and politicians, I simply want to understand the suffering that their approach causes the poor and excluded”.

What is your main concern at the moment?“The question of refugees and immigrants. Only a small proportion of them are Christians, but this does not change the situation as far as we are concerned, or their suffering and distress. The causes are many and we are doing everything possible to remove them. Unfortunately, often these policies are opposed by populations that are afraid of losing jobs and of lower wages. Money is against the poor as well as against immigrants and refugees, but there are also poor people in rich countries who fear the arrival of their fellows from poor countries. It is a vicious circle and it must be broken. We must break down the walls that divide us: we must try to increase well-being and make it more widespread, but to achieve this we need to break down walls and build bridges that allow us to reduce inequality and increase freedom and rights. More rights and greater freedom".

I asked Pope Francis if the reasons that force people to emigrate will be exhausted sooner or later. It is hard to understand why a man, a family or entire communities and peoples want to abandon their homeland, the places where they were born, their language.

You, Your Holiness, through those bridges, will facilitate the re-uniting of those desperate people, but inequalities are born in rich countries. There are laws that try to reduce the gap but they do not have much effect. Will this phenomenon never end?“You have written and spoken several times about this problem. One of the phenomena that inequality encourages is the movement of peoples from one country to another, from one continent to another. After two, three, four generations, these peoples are integrated and their diversity tends to completely disappear".

I call it a universal miscegenation in the positive sense of the term.“Bravo, that is the right word. I do not know if it will be universal but it will be more prevalent than today. What we want is a battle against inequality, this is the greatest evil that exists in the world. It is money that creates it and that goes against those measures that try to make wealth more widespread and thus promote equality".

You told me some time ago that the precept, “Love your neighbour as thyself” had to change, given the dark times that we are going through, and become “more than thyself.” So you yearn for a society where equality dominates. This, as you know, is the programme of Marxist socialism and then of communism. Are you therefore thinking of a Marxist type of society?“It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom".

Your Holiness, I have always thought and written that you are a revolutionary and even a prophet. But it seems that now you would like the Popular Movements and especially the poor to enter directly into politics proper.“Yes, that is correct. Not petty politics – squabbling over power, selfishness, demagogy, money – but higher, creative, politics, the politics of great visions. That which Aristotle wrote about".

I saw that in your speech to the Popular Movements last Saturday you called the Ku Klux Klan, and the similar but opposite Black Panthers, shameful movements.But you said Martin Luther King was admirable. Was he another prophet who made an impression because of what he said in a free America?“Yes, I quoted him because I admire him".

I read the quotation; I think it is worth recalling for those reading this account of our meeting.

“When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system [...] hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil".

And now let’s return to politics and your wish that the poor and the excluded transform that politics into a democratic will to realise the ideals and the will of the popular movements. You advocated an interest in politics because it is Christ who wants it. “The rich must pass through the eye of a needle”. Christ wants it not because he is the son of God but above all because he is the son of man. But there will be a clash, power is at stake, and power, as you have said yourself, implies war. So popular movements must wage a war, albeit political, without weapons and without bloodshed?“I have never thought of war and weapons. Blood yes, may be shed, but it will be Christians who are martyred, as is happening almost all over the world at the hands of fundamentalists and ISIS terrorist executioners. They are terrible and the Christians are their victims".

But you, Holy Father, know that many countries are also using weapons to defeat ISIS. Moreover, weapons are also being used by Jews against Arabs, and even amongst themselves.“Well, it is not that kind of war that Christian popular movements must wage. We Christians have always been martyrs, yet our faith over the centuries has conquered much of the world. Of course, there have been wars supported by the Church against other religions, and there have even been wars within our religion. The most cruel was the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and unfortunately many similar events. But they occurred when the various religions, including ours, sometimes more than others, placed temporal power above faith and mercy".

Yet you, Your Holiness, encourage popular movements to enter politics.Those who enter into politics will inevitably clash with their opponents. It may be a peaceful conflict, but conflict there is, and history tells us that in the conflicts the conquest of power is at stake. Without power you cannot win.“You are forgetting that there is also love. Often love convinces and thus wins. There are a billion and a half Catholics, eight hundred million Protestants of various denominations; three hundred thousand Orthodox Christians, then there are other denominations like Anglicans, Waldensians and Copts. All together there are two and a half billion Christian believers, perhaps more. Will it take weapons and wars? No. Martyrs? Yes, many".

And so you have gained power.«We have spread the faith following the example of Jesus Christ. He was the martyr of martyrs and gave humanity the seed of faith. But I know better than to ask martyrdom of those who grapple with a politics oriented towards the poor, for equality and freedom. This politics is something different from faith and there are many poor people who have no faith. Nevertheless, they have urgent and vital needs, and we must support them as we support all the others. As we can and as we know".

As I listen to you, I am ever more convinced of my opinion of you: that papacies such as yours have been few and far between. But you have many opponents inside your Church.“I would not call them opponents. Faith unites us all. Of course, all of us as individuals see the same things in different ways. Objectively the picture is the same, but subjectively it is different. We have said it many times, you and I".

Your Holiness, I have kept you too long and will leave you now.

At that point we said goodbye with an affectionate embrace. I told himto get some rest now and then and he replied: "You too should rest, because a non-believer like you should be as far from ‘bodily death’ as possible".It was the 7 November.

Issam a prisoner of the Busto Arsizio penitentiary had a special role to play. Before the Novus Ordo Mess began, he alone washed the hands of Francis in the sacristy. Issam asked one request, on the trip, of his warden — to bring along his Moslem prayer rug and say his prayers. He did this once on the way from the prison to the Vatican and once somewhere on the premises of the Vatican! Issam, a 34 year old ‘refugee’ hailed originally from Morocco but was smuggled 20 years ago into Italy from Libya. Once he arrived in Europe, he entered school and graduated then he became an alcoholic and drug addict who committed a slew of crimes to feed his addictions. Issam said, “It seems strange to say but being in prison has saved me. I was
arrested six years ago for a heap of crimes and I still have four more
years to be served. Behind bars I was strengthened in the Muslim faith
that I had since childhood and this has changed me: now I study [the
Koran], I do not do drugs, I do not drink and I have found inner peace.” Thanks to Jorge Rondón Santos who sent us this information. Issam’s full name is Issam El Jyad. He is serving his time in jail for sexual assault, trespassing, aggravated assault and stalking. Issam repeatedly tried to rape a young Romanian woman living in his apartment building in Cardano al Campo as he figured she was an easy target. When the prisoners met Francis, Issam was chosen by his fellow inmates to present Francis with the gift they had made for him in the prison’s bakery — a chocolate key of St. Peter’s. Asked why he wanted to be an altar boy Issam replied, “To make people understand that we Muslims are different from what some would have you believe: we are for peace,” and continued later, “If the popes pray in mosques why shouldn’t I do it in the Vatican? I
remain Muslim but together we can pray for each other, for peace, for
the world. And this Sunday, I did this.” Of Francis he excitedly said, “His words took away my breath away. He prayed for us prisoners. We heard him say we are no longer the last, the excluded.” Don’t expect Issam to abandon his false religion and convert anytime soon, “I remain a Muslim but I believe in dialogue and respect.”